Training begins

After buying a few dozen wooden swords, I headed out to the cave, only to find the old man reading a corn magazine, with a slight tinge of blood coming from his nose.

"Hehehheeh, women of this generation are quite fashionable and forward-thinking. Hush, I wish back in my days women were so hehehehhehe open."

'Pervert old man, sigh, why did I even revive this old foggy?' As soon as Orion entered the cave, the old man threw the magazine away.

"Cough... Cough. I am amazed that the art and culture of the world has flourished this much; the literature was exquisite."

'Don't lie to me, old man. I saw you looking at a corn magazine,' I wanted to say that, but how would a young child like me know about such stuff.

"Old man, did you go to the city? Did you not tell me to hide about your existence? Then why did you go to buy a book?"

"None of your business, brat. Adults like me have to do research of sorts, and I like to broaden the knowledge of wom... *cough* cough* this era."

'Truly a pervert, aren't you, old man? No wonder the Nightshade family didn't like your leadership. This might be one of the reasons.'

'Why is this brat spacing out so much? Does he know something about the *forbidden art*? No, that's impossible. Even a genius of my generation was 8 years old when I got to know about the divine arts.'

"Leaving unnecessary things aside, let's start your training. Now what do you think is the most important thing for a warrior?"

"Talent, maybe." I answered half-heartedly so as not to expose my identity.

Hearing his words, Nathan hit Orion's head again. "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated fools. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

"What about pure strength? Won't absolute strength crush everything else in its way?"

"Good one, but it is only true when you have absolute strength over your enemy. Unless you become the strongest being in PANDORA, you can't have absolute strength. But persistence will help you to go against the limits set by the heavens, which will only make you reach greater heights."

"Now the first thing that I want you to train in swordsmanship is not sword-fighting techniques, basics, or something cliché like that. Those you can find in the family archive, but something very different. For this training, you'll need to have a large amount of blood reserves for better healing."

"HEHEHEHE. It's my first time training someone with this technique, as my wife never allowed my son to take up this training. But today, Orion, you could count yourself lucky to be my pupil."

'Do I look like a lab rat to him for testing his training method?'

"Being a vampire increases perception over your five senses, but it requires you to concentrate on a particular task and can't do one or more tasks in parallel. But when all these five senses come together, then you'll be able to achieve spatial awareness to a new level called 'FLOW'."

"This was one of the reasons that I was considered the greatest swords master of my time. Although it may sound easy to combine senses, it is extremely difficult for parallel processing of information in our body."

"So, anyways, give me the weapons that you've brought and put on a blindfold to completely and also remove your shirt."

Chills ran down my spine as I stood there. 'This pervert old man, does he swing that way?' I stood there, my vision blinded by a black cloth with an exposed chest.

Bam... Bam... Bam!

"Ahhhh.....ahhhhh....ahhhhhhh..... Stop! I can't take it anymore, please stop."

"Heheheheheh, don't you dare think that my techniques are rusty just because I am old. Back in my day..."

'Why is this old man hitting me like this, and why the heck is he narrating his youthful stories to a 3-year-old child? Pervert old man, stop; your words are more hurtful.'

"Ahhhhh....

Nooo! What are you doing, old man? Why are you hitting me so rashly? What did I even do to deserve this?"

Nathan ignored him and increased the frequency and intensity of weapons and continued to hit me in different directions.

'Time passed by, and my wounds were accumulating at a rapid pace. But I wasn't even able to defend against even one of the hits. The moment I predicted the direction and tried to block it, the shape of the weapon changes to a spear, thus harming my palms. If I predicted the type of weapon, then the direction changes, even if I predict both, my body slammed to the side by the force of impact.'

I laid on the floor of the cave completely drenched in blood, marks of whips, piercings of spears, sword marks were visible to the naked eye.

'Just what did I get myself into?'

"Get up, brat, drink some blood and recharge yourself. The real training hasn't even started yet. You are quite delusional, aren't you? First, you say you want to conquer the world, and now here you are getting beaten by a poor old man like me."

'Sigh, guess there's no going back now.' I quickly took a bag of blood from the ring and gulped.

"Ah, refreshing. Come on, old man, this time I'm not going to let you hit me so easily."

Training continued, and evening came.

"Ahhhh, huh, guess I was wrong. This old man is going to cripple me if I continue like this. It won't be long before I join this old man back in the underworld."

And just as Orion was about to continue his rambling, a figure came behind him.

"Why did you run away, brat? Come on now, drink some blood; I'm gonna increase the intensity further."

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooo...."